How did the Russians hack our government? Guess who was guarding us

Two items today — one factual article in the New York Times and the other, an opinion in the Daily News’ Voice of the People (letters to the editor) section — must kill Reaganism dead. Dead dead dead.

What’s it about? Unregulated capitalism versus government.

Here’s Omar Branch’s bold credo in the Daily News:

As long as people continue to rely on the government as their savior, don’t expect 2021 to change for you — or any other year. Those who think outside of the bogus system and become a part of free enterprise will have a bright 2021 and beyond.

With full venom-dripping disrespect to Omar and Reagan, here’s what I say about it:

The scariest words in the American language? “I’m a successful businessman and I’m here to make government function like business.”

What follows are three paragraphs in the Times article, “As Understanding of Russian Hacking Grows, So Does Alarm” (linked above). They are an indictment of big business and its interconnections with our government.

I read this and just…I’m incensed.

Interviews with current and former employees of SolarWinds suggest it was slow to make security a priority, even as its software was adopted by America’s premier cybersecurity company and federal agencies.

Employees say that under Mr. Thompson, an accountant by training and a former chief financial officer, every part of the business was examined for cost savings and common security practices were eschewed because of their expense. His approach helped almost triple SolarWinds’ annual profit margins to more than $453 million in 2019 from $152 million in 2010.

But some of those measures may have put the company and its customers at greater risk for attack. SolarWinds moved much of its engineering to satellite offices in the Czech Republic, Poland and Belarus, where engineers had broad access to the Orion network management software that Russia’s agents compromised.

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